I am a 3D artist, usually I maintain an NVME SSD as a boot drive & a 1 TB internal HDD for some back up.
Now my Texture files & 3D files are ever increasing. It has reached 5 TB of back up, but I need this to be a little bit more future proof so I can expand it up to 50 TB.
This will be just a file server & only I will be accessing this NAS.
What will be your suggestion? Building my own? or buying an off-shelf Synology or QNAP NAS?
I would buy a TrueNAS Mini and go from there. If in a few years you want something with more bays, just buy or build something new and use the Mini as snapshot replication/backup target
How good will a Synology DiskStation DS423+ ( 4 BAY) be , in my country I can get it for $650 + 3x8 TB WD Red for $850.
Ironwolf 8 TB will stretch that budget another 200 USD, so I am trying to avoid it.
I think that would also work well
Are you sure you need a NAS since you’ll be the only one using it? How often will you touch this data, download/upload, is it just a backup or a large space that you will use all the time for work?
The NAS you mentioned has two 1Gb/s network ports, is this bandwidth enough for you?
Maybe another approach instead of NAS would be DAS and USB connectivity?
It won’t be a standalone file server but it will expand your computer’s capacity in a fairly flexible way and if it’s going to be an occasional backup it doesn’t have to be on all the time.
If you care about high resistance against data loss in the event of a single hdd failure, then you can think about ZFS on such a DAS.
I second this, for your use case I would start with cold storage. Start with an 8TB drive (or two for a mirror). Once you get to four drives a RAID5, RAID6 or ZFS setup makes more sense.
Here is a USB 3.0 cabinet with 8 slots for ~$200-$225:
And then you can get 2x Seagate Exxos 18 TB for ~$600:
If that is too expensive for your budget, 2x12 TB is $400 and 2x8 TB can be as low as $250. Going lower is not recommended today, seeing as 2x4 TB SSDs cost $300-$400.
The next step up is a full blown NAS, but that costs a lot too, motherboard + budget CPU + RAM + SSD sets you back roughly $400 and then you have the case, PSU and RAID controller cards that further limits your aspirations. As an example, here is one system that might work for you:
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 5600G | $127.56 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX | $189.99 |
| Memory | TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 2x8 GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | $33.99 |
| Storage | Samsung 980 500 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 SSD | $28.85 |
| Case | Fractal Design Node 304 | $109.98 |
| Power Supply | be quiet! Pure Power 11 600W | $79.90 |
| Custom | ORICO M.2 PCIe M Key to 6 x SATA RAID controller | $49.99 |
| Total | $620.26 |
This is about as cheap as I can make it, in total it’s around a $1k investment with drives and will lack niceties such as 10 GbE - however, that is not truly required in this use case either. Is it worth it? You decide! 
Double check WD Red, it may be a SMR drive. Red Plus and Pro are (probably) CMR. Also I have a feeling Synology is phasing out third party drives, since they came up with their own HAT series, and those are far more expensive than any other drive.
I would love some network capability as I will store my Texture files & some assets (like props) that gets frequently used to be there as well.
Texture files see various usage, & also I am thinking of using it for my ongoing project as well. I lost around 2 TB of my old files because of a disc failure in my desktop. So in a case say I sculpted something with Zbrush , I would love to save that High poly model in my NAS as well, then when it comes to importing to Maya, I would be doing it from my NAS, then baking them in Substance Painter, I need to access both high & low poly model & I would need to access them all the time.
Then comes the matter of exporting them to Marmoset Toolbag for presentations + making a presentation in Unreal. Saving some Unreal Project on that NAS.
literally I intend to save nothing locally, all will be in the server so I can access them when I will need it, so despite it being me alone They will be used frequently, Sometimes I would love to access them from my Laptop as well.
This one of those scenarios where I feel DAS won’t fulfil the requirement. because It will be used as storge+ Ongoing files as well.
Regarding Network speed I don’t think I will need 10 Gbe, cause none of the singular file is going to be more that 5-6 GB, So even 1 Gbe or 2.5 Gbe transfer speed would be sufficient for me.
You & @TimHolus got me thinking that it would be beneficial to have a DAS along with a low capacity NAS.
DAS for the final archiving & NAS for the ongoing project, in that case even a double bay entry level NAS + 4-8 TB storage + a DAS with another 10-20 TB storage seems most reasonable.
Thanks, I will check them.
It’s definitely looking that way. Looks like they came up with a new line (“Plus Series” rather than the “Enterprise Series” ones that they rolled out first) that’s priced and targeted towards what are the typical home user NAS devices, too.
I think its worth mentioning that Seagate Exos 20TB disks have been on sale recently, and potentially again in the future, for $280 each. If OP can wait for deals, this one might come back around
I find it easier to just not do this. Use your (network) storage as just that; storage only. Transfer the files you need to your local workstation storage (e.g. a large 4TB or 8TB SSD), work on them there locally, move the results back to the network storage when finished.
If you do it this way, the “requirements” for your storage device drop significantly.
worth noting that SSD prices have also been dropping recently
Then your needs point you more towards the NAS than the DAS.
But the DAS box can still be considered part of the NAS. Connect the DAS to even a small SBC and thus make a NAS. But it’s a bit of art for art’s sake, the only thing you gain is the option of choosing to connect disks if you ever decide that the NAS does not fulfill the role.
Yet another approach is to buy Odroid HC4, two disks at first and then DAS-based expansion later… but it’s also art for art’s sake again. But if you are financially limited at the moment…
I like your way of thinking…
DAS as a cold copy of all data that does not have to be available all the time, disconnected from the pc and power so that nothing bad happens.
And for the current work, a small NAS…
If you really decided on such a solution, I would look at the Odroid HC4 and two sata ssd, for example, so as not to be limited in any way by the responsiveness of the hdd, but they may as well be hdd.
Then you have the option to install openmediavault and raid1 if you want it to be solid, ZFS is technically an option but not straight out of the box.
If you are going with active projects NAS + DAS for older projects, may I suggest you go full SSD with your NAS? Currently this comes at a premium, and no you do not need it - but an SSD storage will make a difference going forward, believe me.
I recommend these two as a solid combo to get you started on your NAS. While kind of pricey-but-still-affordable in 2023, it will be well worth it on 2027. By then 32 TB m.2 should be below $600, which means sub $300 16TB. That means 96 TB of raw storage for $1.8k or less, or 192 TB of raw storage for ~3.5k. Considering the best HDD deal right now is ~$1.4k for 96 and $2.9k for 192 TB, well… That is the future though 
Turns out there’s Skylake/Kabylake/Coffeelake thin clients and mini PCs than can be procured refurbished for the same price as a new SBC, and then you can stick TrueNAS there - because all the OP needs is just a Samba share.
The rest of the diagram in #14 i very much approve.
Will this backup solution be in the same physical location as the source? If so, might want to also set up an off-site backup solution. This advice is coming from someone whose house was almost lost in a forest fire.
Ok.
Unfortunately, sbc prices are currently abstract and small x86 is slowly taking their place. If the OP has access to cheap x86 then yes.
Only sometimes depending on geolocation these cheap x86 are either not very available or cost more because people are greedy.
I always have a problem with getting something ex corporate at a good price because large companies dealing in catching this equipment take old equipment wholesale from corporations and then sell it quite expensive, which means that the market for cheap x86 is hardly available. 
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